Seasons
by Sekah
Summary: In a world of Sprites and Gods, Seers and Divine Powers, Olympus is the pinnacle of a mystical, half-damned existence. In this life, a nymph such as Kurama can look for no quarter, and a God of Lust, like Karasu, may do as he sees fit.
1. Myth

**Author's Note:** Sonata's fault, all Sonata's fault. Great, another chaptered AU I'm never going to be able to finish. This one's Greek Mythology based. Hopefully you'll have fun.

Each chapter, I'll give a quick rundown of who's playing each god or goddess. Only one in this installment: Chuu is playing Dionysus, God of wine, merriment, and ecstasy, whose creatures the Satyrs were. If you don't know what a Satyr is, imagine a really drunken, horny centaur, and you've got it.

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><p>Kurama let his slender wrists dangle on either side of the muscular bough he lay upon, cradled in the arms of this gnarly grandfather maple, which sighed pleasantly with the wind coming off the lake. Above and below Kurama's head were the crisscross of leaves dappling the sunlight: the short stoutness of the wild olive; stately white poplars; the mourning height of the spearheaded cypresses, which were often planted in mortal cemeteries; chestnuts with tender new leaves; resplendent pine; and fir, sacred to the Great God Pan. They all shivered with gossiping whispers and laughter when the gleeful breezes kissed them each in turn, Kurama smiling as he listened to the treesong, the flowersong, the animal- and birdsong, all resonating together in the joy of a day so clear after yesterday's showers.<p>

A balmy spring day like this shouldn't be wasted, Kurama pondered, his arms stretching out and his toes arching in the shape of a crucified criminal. He sat up nimbly after that, disturbing the magnolia blossoms, wisteria and crocuses he'd woven into his long crimson hair, which shed petals as delicate as the features of his face, wafting down from his comfortable perch.

With a careless snicker, the forest nymph stood, clad only in loose green pants that matched his eyes, cut of Egyptian cotton in the Persian style and accentuated with a patch of fine black fur over the groin. His trousers were tied tightly in place by a silk sash, which had been blessed by a nymph mother to sparkle in a phantasmagoria of colors, never remaining one hue for long, a rainbow sash won by his dancing at the last festival. It turned a soft sky blue as he slid nimbly from the high branch, landing in a bed of moss that thickened to cushion him. He laughed for the joy of it, of being alive on a beautiful day on the bank of a lake that was covered in flowering lily pads, frequented by bleating frogs.

Kurama stepped up onto a burly cypress root feeding into the water, tilting his head down and hovering his palms upward in a gesture of obeisance, offering a quick prayer to the goddess of this crystalline lake. A jeweled fish curled up to the surface near Kurama, and then was gone with a shake of its glistening tail, an acknowledgement of the young forest nymph's politeness.

Kurama, a devilish smile on his impish face, went carousing away through the forest, looking for trouble.

"I'm _saying,_ stealing the panpipe from The Great God Pan is easy and foolish. Besides, who knows what that old goat will do if he catches you. _I _don't want to have to rut with him, he smells like dirty leather," Shishiwakamaru sniffed, turning his head from Kurama in disdain.

"We wouldn't be caught," the grinning redhead giggled, plucking another tart wild grape from the vine of them that he and Shishiwakamaru were stripping. "And besides, rutting can't be _that _bad."

Shishiwakamaru frowned, looking oddly serious. "That's right, you haven't been caught yet, not even by the Satyrs." The water nymph turned his elfin face downward and smoothed back his hair in a gesture of nervousness. "Remember, Kurama: we live a damned existence. The lust gods use us for their fancy, and to god and mortal man and Satyr alike, we are hunted prey."

"Damned?" Kurama couldn't help himself. He chuckled aloud. "I think you're becoming drunk on these grapes, my friend." He popped another juicy fruit through his lips, sucking on it to draw out the flavor. "Who could be damned on such a beautiful day? We're hardly Sisyphus and his boulder, or Tantalus in his lake."

"We are," Shishiwakamaru insisted, gesturing around the green new-leaved trees of this new growth forest angrily, some of his usual superciliousness returning. "All of us. Forced to fly around and around the narrow cage we live in, like larks in a lady's chamber. Even the gods are cursed! But—"

"Satyrs!" Kurama and Shishiwakamaru tensed immediately, dainty heads jerking to stare at Jin, the wind sprite, who was clambering off the side of the massive fir he'd climbed to be on lookout. "Kurama! Shishi! Satyrs! And they've got darts!"

Kurama dropped his last handful of grapes, which fell to the ground and rolled, one crushed under his bare foot as he scurried into the forest. Shishi leapt into the stream that cut through this narrow clearing, really just an opening in the trees, skating away. He turned, running backward a few quick steps. "I'll catch up with you at the big cypress in the center of the village. Good luck!"

"Run!" Jin shouted, and then took to the air, weaving between the treetops so the blowguns wouldn't have a clean shot, all three of the nymphs racing in different directions. Now Kurama could hear the Satyr's horns and bullish calls in the woods behind them.

"Close," Kurama panted to himself, dipping and dodging over and under and around trees, roots, shrubs and the like, scrambling through the loam. "Too close! Jin didn't see them until too…"

At that moment, just as Kurama turned back to look at the trunks he'd just surpassed, begging them to close in behind him, hide him, something big moved out of the bushes to Kurama's right. Kurama had just enough time to realize that the ones behind were simply a diversion, intended to flush Kurama and the others forward into the real trap, before his world upended violently as something locked around his limbs.

"Well, well, well. What have we here?" Kurama heard. He struggled violently against the strong hemp and iron net that snarled around him, feeling like a rabbit in a trap that would soon have its neck broken, and then be skinned and boiled. Kurama's heart was pounding against his ribs.

"Stop struggling or I'll drug you," the Satyr snorted. Recognizing a real threat when he heard one, Kurama cringed, but stilled. He looked up to glare venomously at his captor, shying away from the bristly face that drew close. The man's horse parts trotted him near to Kurama while his man parts leaned down to stare, narrow-eyed, into Kurama's face.

"You're an appealing one, aren't you?" the Satyr said wonderingly. "Prettiest nymph I've ever seen. You'd give Narcissus himself a run for his money." He huffed, grinning, a hand reaching down to pull up his bagged prey by its weighted ends, stroking the skin of Kurama's smooth stomach crudely through the woven openings of the net. "I invoke the right of Chuu, God of wine and merriment. You, nymph, will be my amusement for the night."

Kurama found his body hitched over the Satyr's shoulder, bunched up in his prison, knowing that he could not request leave to return home until this time next day. He shivered pitifully as the Satyr dragged him off.


	2. Merriment

**Author's Note: **Yup. This is definitely (kind of) bestiality. So sorry.

Mukuro is Artemis, virgin goddess of the hunt, virginity, archery and all animals; Yukina is Demeter, goddess of fertility, agriculture, nature, and the seasons; Karasu is Eros, the god of sexual love and beauty; and Chuu is still Dionysus.

A satyrisci is a young Satyr, and maenads are the female followers of Dionysus (here Chuu).

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><p>Kurama was jounced and bumped against the Satyr's broad, hairy back, which stank of sweat, lust, and cheap wine. Kurama's long legs, still entangled in the net, were thrown in the air, his body upside down and scrunched uncomfortably in a curl like a fern that hadn't fully extended. Worse, his heart pounded almost through his chest as his captor's stallion-parts' quick trot led them closer and closer to the noisy cavalcade of Satyrs.<p>

Even from this distance, the sound was abysmal. Shouts and braying laughter warred with the only occasionally rhythmic thumping of the drums, panpipes and flutes twittering out-of-tune and a bonfire sputtering and crackling underneath it all.

_A bonfire,_ Kurama thought irately, _on midmorning of a warm spring day. Honestly._

He tried to crane his neck to see something beyond the loam and dirt of the forest below the strawberry roan horsehide stretching and shuddering beneath him. Kurama wriggled his captive torso to try and get a better look at his surroundings.

Just then, the clamor of gadding Satyrs overwhelmed him, and he saw the trees in his peripheral vision come to an end, the wildflowers below him telling him clearly he was in a salt meadow.

"I bagged a fish!" his captor whinnied, and Kurama yelped. He was swung over the man's shoulder and tossed to the ground, landing hard on his rump with an undignified grunt. He straightened up and glared at the multicolored horseflesh and into men's faces, seeing the traditional Satyr beards and pointed ears, long shaggy manes of hair, the gruff and roguish features he'd watched from trees when he was small enough that the Satyrs would leave him out of their games.

Then, they'd been fascinating, and Kurama had been filled with youthful thoughts of leading them on merry dances through the woods. He'd even been caught once, when curiosity led him to watch their antics from the ground, but the Satyr had done little more than grab his arm, look him over, and send him away with a pat on his back, and instructions to return post-haste to his mother.

Kurama sincerely, hopelessly wished they'd do something similar to him now, but their grins widened instead, and they discussed him with gusto while he finally managed to slip from the net. Kurama tucked his hair back and felt the bruised, crumpled form of what were once wisteria blossoms woven into his long crimson locks, though now they were mere broken husks.

"Lovely little thing, isn't it?" one snickered.

"A forest nymph, eh? One of the Goddess Yukina's."

"I was beginning to get worried!" a third announced, his horse half palomino and his human half scruffy and tanned, light brown hair in a tangle above his neck. He flashed an infectious grin around the circle, tapping at a djembe drum, an import from the Wagadou Empire, he kept hooked under his arm. "We only bagged one other nymph today so far, and it was monopolized by Suzuki."

"Say, little one, we'll be nice. Who would you like to have you first?"

Their roughhousing stopped, and they circled him, looking him over and snorting to themselves like horses, the brass and wood trinkets and circlets hooked over their arms clinking loudly.

Kurama stuttered through the words he had been taught since childhood for his first catch. "I invoke the r-rights of Mukuro, Goddess of Virginities. Please be kind to me in h-her name." He found he couldn't look at them, staring into his lap instead.

There was a startled whoop from the first Satyr, the palomino. "Did you hear that, boys? We've got a virgin nymph on our hands!"

Laughter, prancing, and festive shouts met this revelation. Hands reached and Kurama found himself captured around the middle, dragged, fighting like a new bride, towards a hulking log felled for the purpose, meant to negate the difference in nymph physiognomy and the Satyr's half-horse version. Feeling the ridges of muscle scraping his back, Kurama kicked at a nearby Satyr, panicking, only succeeding in having his legs captured. Rough hands undid his multicolored sash, still flashing gaily, and in a mere moment his pants had been stripped from him, leaving his slim, dainty body bare to their eyes.

A Satyr with a buckskin coat, eyes so dark brown they were almost black, and a short curly mop of hair colored like birch bark on his head, recaptured Kurama's legs, laying a kiss on the inside of his calf, eyes surprisingly chaste as they drank in Kurama.

"Someone put down a blanket," this one yelled, and Kurama, seeing a Satyr blink, and lay a soft brown goose feather tick over the rough bark of the felled log, and even, at further urging from the buckskin, put some cushions over it, smiled at him shyly in thanks.

"You haven't answered, little one," a Satyr asked. "Who do you wish to take you?"

Kurama gulped deeply, and then pointed at the handsome buckskin, who grinned infectiously and came forward.

Kurama was dropped gently onto the tick, and stared up at the buckskin, who straddled the log and leaned down, massaging Kurama's shoulder.

Seeing him cringe, the buckskin said, "Do not fret, little one. I am of the belief that a nymph's first catch shouldn't be a rough one. Nymphs who participate willingly are much more pleasurable for me than those that are treated cruelly or forced."

"Speak for yourself, Agapetos! A satyrisci like you might prefer them willing, but I find I thicken at the very thought of their tears!"

"That's because you can't have them willing, you damn gelding! They take one look at your ugly face and burst out weeping. Even the maenads won't couple with you," Agapetos laughed back, stamping his hoof when the addressed Satyr neighed and tossed back his head.

Kurama smiled, his fears relaxing. This wasn't so bad, so long as he wasn't being disrespected, hurt, forced, or any of the other things he'd been afraid of.

He tensed when Agapetos shifted into position, but the Satyr saw it, and then, to a series of catcalls and boos, stepped away and leaned down to take Kurama by the hand, and walk him to the fire.

"Come, sit in front of the flames with me. We will drink, and laugh, and when you are sodden with wine and more acclimated to the idea, I will take you."

"Have you been gelded yourself, Agapetos?" a Satyr asked irately.

"Never," Agapetos snorted, lowering himself ponderously until his horse half lay curled around Kurama, who knelt down, smiling, relieved. "But a beauty like this would look stunning wine-loosened and begging, don't you think?"

"Will you get off me!" a familiar voice shouted irately from the side, and Kurama lost his nervous smile and stirred, half rising to his feet.

"Shishi!"

"Kurama? They caught you too, eh? Bastards."

"Hush, darling, or I shall have to find other things to occupy that beautiful mouth."

Kurama heard irritated grumbling, and then the fuming water nymph and his captor trotted into view.

Shishiwakamaru, nude and seething, was being held lovingly in the arms of a Satyr whose horse half was pure white stallion, with a tightly muscled body above the waist, a shock of blond hair, and a conceited look on his handsome face.

"Suzuki," the Satyrs murmured, some bowing to him quickly with a degree of fondness, and he smirked at them.

"The beautiful Suzuki declares that you should all get up!" Kurama wondered at a voice that could make Shishiwakamaru's sound humble in comparison. "My little darling, you know this young forest nymph?"

"We were attempting to eat some breakfast when you damn Satyrs came barging in," Shishi sniffed. "And honestly, when will you stop catching _me,_ Suzuki?"

"When you stop making yourself such a target, dearest." He turned and gestured with studied grandeur at a nearby Satyr. "Wine for our nymph companions! Play some music, dance for them, and caper! May my darling give in to me tonight, and may this forest nymph serve as an admirable amusement to the rest!"

Kurama found a rough cup sloshing with liquor shoved in his hand, and watched with interest as the palomino began to beat his djembe drum and Suzuki (constantly referring to himself with the adjective beautiful) began a droning tale to Shishi about his first meeting with the God Chuu ("dreadful fellow, the most horrific stench…"), the water nymph looking about as excited about the story as Kurama felt. Agapetos was rubbing his back, and Kurama nervously took a gulp of his wine, which he almost coughed right back up.

Within three hours, Kurama was leaning against Agapetos' stomach, the Satyr's big hand wrapped around Kurama's cock, tugging and massaging it while Kurama moaned helplessly, the expression on his face practically lewd.

Suzuki was having an argument with a drunken Shishi that seemed to hinge almost entirely around the idea of whether the sole patch of grey on Suzuki's withers stopped him from being a true white in markings. Kurama lolled his head and watched the two sniff and bitch and snipe at each other, and then arms lifted him up.

"I think you're ready for us, eh, little forest nymph?"

Kurama whimpered, his cup rolling from limp fingers and bouncing to the ground. He found himself back on the feather tick, legs spread, a penis more accurately belonging to a horse than a man aligned with him. He quivered, trying to shift away, but was pushed back into position, Agapetos panting above him, shushing him.

Kurama felt horseflesh stroke against his penis, the far too large manhood press into him, and looked up, confused and afraid, the pleasant drunken feeling now sickening as he was shushed again. The clearing was spinning, and Kurama couldn't help but whimper, trying to see straight, trying to close his legs and keep his body pure.

"Satyrs," a sing-song voice as smooth and soft as silk reached out, low, but still easily heard by the intent, circling beings. "That one does not belong to you."

A figure dressed in black stepped from the trees, a man with half his face masked, long midnight hair clinging to his pale neck like spider webs, framing terrible violet eyes. With an irritated flick of his fingers, Agapetos' rigid, dripping cock withered, falling fully limp.

"The God Karasu," Agapetos gasped, his body, robbed of lust, feeling doused in frigid water.

Suzuki went from drunken and foolish to sober and alert in a mere minute, pawing forward, bowing, as Satyrs so rarely did, to one of the Great Gods come among them.

"What brings you here, Lord?"

Karasu smiled beneath the metal over his face, his eyes glittering. "A truly beautiful creature such as that nymph does not deserve the crude affections of you tired old nags."

A Satyr whinnied in anger, but Karasu's eyes flicked to him and he cut off, mid whicker, to cringe back from the unpleasant glimmer in Karasu's eyes.

"I don't understand," Suzuki said. "The Satyrs have chased the nymphs since the inception of both our lines. Why do you disrupt it?"

"Such a lovely, tragic, beautiful thing," Karasu murmured lustfully, ignoring Suzuki completely, footsteps purposeful and slow as he walked to Kurama, stalking him, the nymph still straddled by the satyr Agapetos. "I will enjoy you to the fullest."

Agapetos looked like he wanted to argue, but he wouldn't risk being unmanned forever, not even for a nymph with such pretty eyes. He looked down sadly, apologizing to the nymph silently, and stepped away from the log, revealing Kurama to the afternoon air. To be caught by Satyrs was a nymph's lot, so usual there were ritualistic rules to the thing, evidenced by the first words binding a nymph to his captor for a day, after which Kurama would have been free, or Kurama's invoking of Mukuro's name, to beg kindness for his virginity. But to be the beloved of Karasu, cruelest of Great Gods, was not an enviable position. Agapetos felt pity, but stood back anyway, watching as the still drunken nymph flinched away from the dark God bearing down on him.

"Come. My house on Olympus awaits."

"No…" Kurama whimpered, pulling back from the reaching hands, but a harsh smack rolled him over and made him ache until he laid a cool, soothing palm to his cheek.

Karasu picked the young nymph up, smiling into his blushing face, and then he turned and was gone, disappearing through the trees. The Satyrs murmured to one another, shocked. Suddenly, a spike of lust hit them all so hard many of the Satyrs almost doubled over. Frenzied, they turned to Shishiwakamaru, who had both hands over his mouth as he watched the forest.

They closed in on him quickly, Suzuki kicking to stop them as the first of them threw the water nymph roughly to the ground.


	3. Olympus

**Author's Note:** Thanks to everyone who pointed out that Satyrs are usually half-goat. I got Satyrs and Centaurs confused, and unfortunately there's not much I can do to fix it. New Gods in this chapter include Toguro as Zeus, Genkai as Hera, Yomi as Hades, and all the other Gods and Goddesses previously mentioned still in place as well.

A peplos was the inner tunic, a major part of Greek clothing, along with the himation, the outer cloak Ancient Greek men and women wore.

An eromenos is a traditional aspect of Ancient Greek culture, in which an adolescent boy is in not only a teacher/pupil, but also often a sexual relationship with an adult man.

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><p>Kurama curled like a cowering pup at Karasu's feet, given no further thought after being shoved there than a footstool or an amphorae of oil. They rode a winged chariot of cool but lifeless silver, lined with the ivory of some ancient beast. Kurama was too fearful to nestle among the Persian cushions of luxurious black silk at his back, scared of overstepping his bounds.<p>

Karasu the capricious was the subject of bedtime stories, legends, and bawdy tales, all extolling or reviling his mean and ruinous treatment of lovers. Toguro, King of the Gods, whose debaucheries were infamous among all, traditionally begot sons with the female mortals and demigods he copulated with, and often heaped his lovers with honors, though his wife Genkai twisted them when she could. His love could be turned to indifference, even depraved indifference, but Karasu was unquestionably the harsher fate. Karasu knew no kindness. He flirted with Yomi, God of the Dead, and often sent his beloveds down to meet him. It was one thing to feel awe at the stories of his exploitive cruelties, and another to be his captive, the slave of a Great God with powers no nymph, even the Grandmothers and Grandfathers with all their wisdom, could ever dream of facing.

Kurama looked up at the still figure towering over him, clothed in a sleek peplos with an interior that matched the God's violet eyes, currently out of sight above the underside of his statuesque chin, and the black outer cloak, the himation, billowing behind him in the chill evening air. The inner tunic, with its rich deep blue-purple folds, was belted at the waist, and neither the peplos nor the himation was of a cloth that Kurama had seen before, or ever even imagined could exist. The gathering shadows of night darkened behind Karasu, and seemed to wind like smoke into the cloth, which absorbed the absence of light. The colors of the panoramic dusk, bright and gaudy and fading to a dull pink on the horizon, were also caught by the material of the himation and translated into black, as if all color was simply a part of black broken away, and the cloak greedily absorbed the rebels back into itself, imprisoning them again, forever.

The cloak shimmered prettily in the last evening light, but the look of it, like a midnight with no moon or stars, made Kurama shiver. He glanced at the hills, the forests and mortal farmlands of the islands, spread like a patchwork quilt as far as the eye could see, Mother Gaia curving into forever on each side. Occasionally a blurring spot of light could be seen, a campfire or blacksmith's forge, the lonely cluster of villages who lit fires and hung up precious oil lamps to welcome loved ones home from a day's work in fields or pastures. The great seas and lazy rivers of blue or grey they passed glittered like carpets of jewels in the final light of the sun, as the God Kuwabara's burning chariot raced through the sky and neared its rest at their destination, Mount Olympus. Kurama's hair blew in the wind, and he shivered again, this time from the numbing, biting cold as the sun's fire died away. They climbed higher and higher up to the arch of the firmament, where the holes in the celestial sphere let the light of the heavens shine through, which the mortals and others who existed below the blanketing arch called _stars_.

Kurama felt strange. He couldn't breathe; the air felt thin, and hot, too hot. Kurama let out a breathless little moan, drawing Karasu's attention, finally, as the otherworldly ceiling came closer and the four flying horses, hooves beating the air in a soundless gallop and shadowy wings extended triumphantly, began to direct the chariot towards a hole that, this close, sent out rays of light and sparkles of glowing power that drifted down like bright snowflakes.

Kurama had begun to seize on the floor of the carriage from lack of air, unable to see the beauty surrounding him as his vision blackened and his beautiful mouth gaped like a fish's. His suffering made the image all the more beautiful to Karasu, who held Kurama down with a sandaled foot on his stomach, forcing him from his agonized arch. Then they burst through the dark nighttime clouds, the underside of which reflected nothing of the loveliness above, and finally ripped through the hole and up into a sunny day on the broad heights of a mountain, wreathed by white clouds tinged pink or blue, which drifted out of Karasu's way. In the distance the winding, ethereal songs of harps and flutes were audible, like a familiar voice a few rooms away, words impossible to distinguish but the sound still comforting.

It was Olympus itself, though Kurama was too busy gasping and choking, Karasu keeping his foot casually crushing Kurama's diaphragm with no thought of the boy, to notice its surpassing allure. A golden road circling through the clouds, attached to nothing, floating in midair, welcomed Karasu's chariot and sweat-lathered horses to their home. The ivory mountain swung up into the sky with peaks on every side, colossal and imposing. Shortly after they'd arrived, trotting broodingly up the golden track, they turned into a wide avenue of silver, which led to a massive door in a wall carved from the side of the mountain, unnaturally smooth and pure grey. The doors were painted black and red, a deep, vermillion red that reminded Kurama of blood, as he finally looked around weakly, overwhelmed by his surroundings but aware of the need for vigilance, of approaching terror.

Male servants walked up clucking their tongues and took the horses, whose wings were folded, sides heaving, snouts speckled with foam as they were unhitched and led away, blowing through their noses and their square equine teeth. Karasu stepped down from the driver's mount, a servant dragging Kurama with him before the chariot, abruptly, disappeared, dissolving as though it had only ever been a cloud. Kurama stared around the dusty courtyard in open wonder as Karasu instructed the servant to give him a bath and then take him to his bedroom and leave him there. Already forgetting his beautiful captive, Karasu stalked off to a door open straight ahead, leading into busy-looking kitchens, to take care of other business.

The servant, a black-haired demigod who seemed to be unconcerned about the fate of Kurama or any other young, lowly nymph, led him to the right corner of the courtyard, over a carven marble lip and into a workroom of wood floors and stately columns of common, though highly polished granite. There, industrious young men were bent over wheels, making something that was more phantasmagoric than Kurama's lost belt, long spools of something that seemed to be disappearing down into holes in the floor of this great stuffy room, with all its sweating slaves toiling away, eyes turned down and lidded with exhaustion, each with his own simple linen peplos in a variety of colors which matched eye, or hair, or skin colors.

"What's that?" Kurama asked, still breathless and pained from the chariot ride, muscles sore and stiff and still tottering a bit, though no one moved to help him.

"Desire," his guide answered carelessly as they wove between the wheels.

Kurama looked back at the long woven streams in wonder. Glancing around curiously, he realized that most, if not all the slaves they passed were male, and very handsome. Some were mortal, some nymph-kind like Kurama, some dryads, some lesser Gods, all looking worn-down and yet, quite attractive. The humans Kurama found most interesting: he knew dryads, nymphs and Gods, but in his mystical home in the forest, mortal men rarely ventured. They had such drab skin colors, no bright blues, greens or purples, their tone ranging from Nubians with short-cropped hair and skin black and sleek as obsidian to men of Celtic tribes, whose hair was golden or orange, not red like Kurama's, and whose skin was the color of fresh buttermilk. No one looked up as he entered, but as he was instructed to climb a ladder like a common slave, though there must have been stairs somewhere, he felt their eyes on his back, some pitying, some indifferent, a few curious, most not. A shiver ran up his spine as he wondered how often they saw boys like him come in. He tried not to think of what happened to those others.

Kurama knew what he'd seen nothing of yet, though. Flowers. This place was sans flora of any kind, though most lavish houses like this had potted trees or flower boxes inside them that slave girls tended to. His forest-nymph blood felt cut-off, lost, and Kurama trudged after his guide feeling intolerably lonely as they walked through several more sumptuous, man-made rooms, passing in a whir of richness for Kurama, all hung with silk and glittering with sapphires, emeralds, rubies and diamonds. Where most houses would have wood, Karasu had marble or gold. It was all very gaudy.

In one, a rough room that you had to go through two storage rooms and into a corner to get to, a chamber that obviously Karasu himself would never need to walk through and which they took a detour (the only of its kind) to see, Kurama was instructed that, "When the master is finished with you, you come here. We will put you to work as per his instructions. Please him, and in the morning he may allow you sleep, or bandages or salve or the like. He'll rarely allow you to be healed, though, so I warn you, please him if you can." Kurama said nothing, his heart jumping to his throat where it palpitated, unbidden. Finally, they came to a room more grand and sumptuous than any that they had seen so far, and also darker.

Karasu's bedroom was covered in cushions and blankets – the bed was the floor, and the floor was the bed. When Kurama tried to walk forward, awed by the first feel of a full, soft goose feather mattress he stepped into, he was cuffed and dragged back, then shoved to a nearby winding stair leading directly into a lavish bathing room.

"You won't be allowed to use the master's bathing room often, I'm afraid. You're to draw your own bath and clean quickly but thoroughly, and then go back to the master's bedroom and wait," the servant intoned, sounding almost cheerful. He turned to go, and paused at the door, turning back to flash a sudden grin from under short black bangs and violet eyes. "Get there before he does, and don't try to run. You don't want to make him wait."

The servant, a boy in his late teens, gave another quirk of a smile. At the sight of something friendly, Kurama, previously cowed, screwed up his courage and asked, "What's your name?"

"They call me Sniper," the boy said. Kurama moved to introduce himself, but the servant raised his hand and waved it slightly to stop him. "Don't tell me yours. I don't want to know it if he gets rid of you after one night. Tell it to me tomorrow, if you've survived. Do remember: you are not his eromenos. You are his slave, and he will treat you like one. Do not overstep your bounds." With that and a wave, and sniggers, Sniper left the washroom by the ornately carven door, and Kurama was alone, staring down at the fine grains in the marble on the bathing room's floor. The weeping, he told himself stubbornly, was from the minerals in the torrid steam leaking from the pipes. He banished weakness and walked forward to bathe, still naked and streaked with dirt from the log and the Satyrs.

The tears dried through force of will, and were not replaced.


End file.
